The NRA Misses the Target with Their "Good Guy with a Gun" Strategy

Posted by Carl Petersen47sc on December 11, 2018

While others struggled to flee the Borderline Bar and Grill, Ventura County Sergeant Ron Helus and a still unnamed California Highway Patrol officer ran towards danger. As Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub told reporters: “Both Sgt. Helus and the CHP officer knowingly and willingly went into what can only be described as a combat situation, risking their own lives to save many others”. The two officers were the ultimate good guys with guns; Helus was a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and the CHP officer was a nine-year veteran of the CHP and had a military background. At the end of the encounter with a mass-murderer, the CHP officer pulled Helus’ dying body out of the building. The coroner later revealed that it was his gun that likely delivered the bullet that ultimately ended Helus’ life. Neither police officer managed to hit the shooter.

To this day, the NRA and their allies still try to demonize the police officers who did not rush into the Parkland Shooting with guns blazing. While it is easy to armchair quarterback and fantasize that they could have easily walked into the school and instantaneously stopped the massacre, those officers also knew that the chaos enveloping the situation could also mean that what happened at the Borderline was also a possibility. Given the number of children flowing from the school was much higher than those in attendance at the Borderline, the chances are that they were the ones who could have been killed in friendly fire.

If Trump ever gets his way and teachers are given concealed permits so that they can carry guns in the classroom, the danger will increase. The CHP officer entered the Borderline with Sergent Helus and in the confusion still accidentally shot him. How will officers responding to a school shooting know how to tell the difference between the active shooter and a teacher? How will a teacher know that the flash from a gun is being held by the shooter or a police officer? How many children will be killed in the crossfire?

Recent headlines also provide answers to these questions. Jemel Roberson was an aspiring police officer who was working as an armed security guard at Manny’s Blue Room Bar. He apprehended a shooting suspect at the bar and held him at gunpoint for the police. Seeing the good guy with a gun, a responding officer shot him. Roberson is now dead.